Attiny85 and Pololu USB programmer (solved)

Other Hardware 3rd Party Boards
1

Hi,

I have had a good time experimenting with the Attiny 85, using Arduino as ISP. I'am impressed what you an do with such a small device.

Now I would like to use a programmer, so I bought a pololu USB AVR Programmer, and then my trouble began.

Im using Coing Badly's core:

I ammended this to programmers.txt :

pololu.name=pololu USB AVR Programmer
pololu.communication=serial
Pololu.protocol=avrispv2
#arduinoisp.speed=19200

and the bords.txt:

The following DO work (pick one)...

attiny85at8.upload.protocol=avrispv2

attiny85at8.upload.using=arduino:arduinoisp

attiny85at8.upload.using=arduino:pololu

And then what I think is the prolem, in avrdude.conf I made this entry:

programmer
id = "Pololu";
desc = "pololu USB AVR Programmer";
type = avrispv2;

When uploading the blink sketch I get this message from the Arduiono IDE

Binary sketch size: 748 bytes (of a 8192 byte maximum)
error at D:\Ernst\arduino\arduino-0021\hardware/tools/avr/etc/avrdude.conf:387 unrecognized character: "a"

line 387 is: type = avrispv2;

I have tried other names f.:ex: Pololu but no luck
So obviosly I can't just make a new type, so what to do

Any Ideas??

2

i think you should respect lowercase/uppercase i see on the first 2 lines pololu written with lowercase p , but the last line is written with uppercase p not sure if will work but you can try :smiley:

3

Thakyou for your answer putyn, I have tried making all pololu names lower case, but no luck

4

I ammended this to programmers.txt :

Which one? The one in the Arduino directory or the one in the Tiny Core directory?

5

I apreciate your help

I only have programmers.txt in the Arduino directory.

I have a boards.txt in both Arduino and Tiny directory

Now I have tried to copy the programmers.txt to the Tiny directory, but it dos not make any difference.

What makes me suspicious about the avrdude.conf is that if I change the type to one of the predetermined type (by this i mean one of the types mentioned in the top of avrdude.conf ) fex. stk500v2 then i get another message

avrdude: stk500v2_command(): command failed
avrdude: initialization failed, rc=-1
Double check connections and try again, or use -F to override
this check.

6

Now I have tried to copy the programmers.txt to the Tiny directory, but it dos not make any difference.

Please remove programmers.txt from the Tiny directory.

7

What makes me suspicious about the avrdude.conf

It is not necessary to modify the avrdude.conf file. I suggest restoring the original. Once you are able to program the target processor then try modifying the avrdude.conf file to include a pololu option.

8

I finally solved the problem, so now i'm a happy man ,but on the other hand i feel stupid for wasting your time, but i think i would share my experience:

What i did was quit simple:

I deleted all the programmers.txt and boards.txt files, made a new installation of arduino-022 and copyed the files (boards snd programmers) where they belong, and then made the nessesary changes.

So the problem was that i had mixed the files up :blush:

Now i have a fading RGB Led and a 3-wire LCD working on the attiny85. My next project will be a 2-wire LCD with capacity measurement.

Thanks for the help

9

Excellent. I'm glad you have it working.